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Automatic Door

An automatic door, also known as an auto door, is a door that opens automatically, usually on sensing the approach of a person.

In the 1st century AD, mathematician Heron of Alexandria in Roman Egypt invented the first known automatic door. He described two different automatic door applications. The first application used heat from a fire lit by the city's temple priest. After a few hours atmospheric pressure built up in a brass vessel causing it to pump water into adjacent containers. These containers acted as weights that – through a series of ropes and pulleys – would open the temple's doors at about the time people were to arrive for prayer. Heron used a similar application to open the gates to the city.[1]

In 1931, engineers Horace H. Raymond and Sheldon S. Roby of the tool and hardware manufacturer Stanley Works designed the first model of an optical device triggering the opening of an automatic door. The invention was patented and installed in Wilcox's Pier Restaurant in West Haven, Connecticut for the benefit of waiters carrying plates of food and drink. The entire system plus installation was sold for $100.[2][3]

In 1954, Dee Horton and Lew Hewitt invented the first sliding automatic door. The automatic door used a mat actuator. In 1960, they co-founded Horton Automatics Inc and placed the first commercial automatic sliding door on the market.[4]

​Rugby is a market town in Warwickshire, England, close to the River Avon. The town has a population of 70,628 (2011 census[1]) making it the second-largest town in the county. The town is the main settlement within the larger Borough of Rugby which has a population of 100,500 (2011 census).

Rugby is on the eastern edge of Warwickshire, near the borders of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. It is 83 miles (134 km) north of London, 30 miles (48 km) east-southeast of Birmingham, 11 miles (18 km) east of Coventry, and 19 miles (31 km) south southwest of Leicester.

Rugby was a small rural market town until the mid-19th century, when the siting of a major railway junction at the town spurred the development of manufacturing and engineering industry, and the rapid growth of population.

Rugby School, an independent school situated in the town, is the birthplace of Rugby football, which according to legend, was invented in 1823, by a Rugby schoolboy William Webb Ellis.[2] The school was founded in 1567, and rose to national prominence as a public school in the 18th century.

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